No, I don't think it's important. Users have value to search engines. Every user who chooses a non-Google option from the dialog will immediately cause Google to make less money, and the selected competitor to make more. (Because all the competitors will be bidding less than Google makes per user, and bidding less than they themselves make per user).
So I think saying that the competitors will be bleeding billions of dollars is just not true. Unless they totally misjudge their bids, they should still be in a better position than they are now.
(But I'll happily volunteer to be the third party getting those billions of dollars a year. Sounds like a pretty sweet gig!)
> If we're trying to break up the search monopoly, Google should be paying other search engines to be in it's setup flow, so the money is going to the companies that need it.
Sounds great, I'll happily volunteer for that too!
But more seriously, that sounds like a rather bizarre plan to me. Is it part of any kind of established anti-trust doctrine?
The most competitive alternative (Bing) is owned by a trillion dollar company, controlling one of the biggest operating systems and the biggest browsers. You'd seriously have Google pay Microsoft to make Bing better?
The next one on the list is owned by a mere $250 billion company, so obviously there's no question at all about Verizon needing some handouts.
But what's the next step after that? Google should perhaps give Apple some free money so that they can make iOS more competitive? It's too bad for Google they shut down G+, if they'd waited just a bit longer they could have gotten Facebook to chip in some money to fund its development.